Medellin

Medellin, home of the late Pablo Escobar, was once the murder capital of the world, but is now the safest big city in Latin America. It's full of great restaurants, museums, parks, public artwork and has a perfect climate, between 60 and 70 degrees year round. We loved it.

Day One
We got to Medellin on Thursday night after a ridiculously terrifying flight from Barranquilla. The plane was scheduled to make a stop in Monteria, a town halfway between Barranquilla and Medellin. In order to get to the Monteria airport we had to descend through a thunderstorm. It was only after the landing gear was down that the pilot discovered the airport was closed, so there we went, right back through the storm. I could see lightning out of the window and the plane was shaking all over the place. Brad had a white-knuckle grip on the chair beside me and I just shut my eyes and sent out telepathic love to all my family.

Once we got to Medellin we were ready for a drink, so we picked up a bottle of wine and relaxed a bit in the apartment, then headed to Parque Lleras, Medellin's nighttime hotspot for dinner.

Day Two
On Friday we hit up the Museo Antioqueno, Colombia's second largest museum. Outside there is a sculpture garden of Colombia's favorite artist: Botero. People really love these statues, you can see the wearing on them from where they've been rubbed, patted and sat on. Inside we weren't allowed to take pictures, something I didn't realize until after I got scolded by a museum worker. But I did manage to get one picture.






Everybody that walked past this lady touched her butt. Moms would even lift their kids up to patt her as they walked by.

I got in BIG trouble to bring you this picture. Right beside the museum there's a whole long row of men with old typewriters and they all seemed to have customers.

This statue is in Parque San Antonio. In 1995 it was damaged by a bomb that also killed 23 people.



Mangos

Friday night Brad and I went to Mangos, Medellin's hottest night club. Everyone of our friends who had been to Medellin before told us we had to check it out and we weren't disspointed. We went during Oktoberfest, which meant way too much free beer.

Mangos is famous for two things: little people and beautiful women. We saw lots of both.

This is going to be Brad's facebook picture for a long time.
I think this is supposed to be President Uribe. I support his message.




Day Three

After Mangos we were moving pretty slow, so our only big activity for the day was riding the city's metro system. Medellin's metro is impressive. The tracks are elevated and run diagonally through the city. There is even a cable car that runs up the mountains surrounding the city. In Medellin the poor neighborhoods are on the slopes of the mountains, and we got a pretty good view of everything when we passed right over top of them.

Day Four

On Sunday we did the Vuelta a Oriente, which is a tour around the mountain towns east of Medellin. We didn't take the actual tour, we just hopped on a bus and did it ourselves. The first bus we got on passed our stop and I didn't realize it until about 10 minutes down the road. The bus driver was apologetic, but said the only thing to do was hop off and wait by the side of the road for another bus. So that's what we did. Moments after getting off the bus it started to rain, so we thought we would speed things up and walked toward town. There we were walking along a busy road without a shoulder and I kept thinking, "If Mom knew I was doing this she'd kill me." But things got even better when a Jeep pulled up and we both hopped on, Brad rode hanging on to the back for extra adventure. Turns out the driver wasn't a murderer or a pervert and we arrived in town, El Penol, just as it started to downpour. We took shelter in a restaurant full of Colombian cowboys and waited out the rain.

After the storm died down we took a taxi and a bus to El Carmen de Viboral, which is famous for its ceramics. It's a tiny town and it's full of beautiful ceramics. It was hard to know what to buy, I wanted everything, but there was the issue of carrying it and from there getting it back to Iowa, so I settled on a 6 piece coffee set.

The big destination of the day was the restaurant Queareparaenamorarte, where our man Anthony Bourdain ate on his visit to Medellin. It took two buses to get there, but it was worth it. The name of the restaurant means, what can I do to make you fall in love with me?, and apparently all they had to do was serve us a big plate of sausage because we are in love.

El Penol locals
Carmen de Viboral




Cooking sancocho in Carmen de Viboral





Tony had this dish too, he liked the black chorizo best. We liked the middle one.